Introduction To Six Sigma

Article Review – Where Process-Improvement Projects Go Wrong (WSJ)

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Today a friend sent me this article “Where Process-Improvement Projects Go Wrong” from the Wall Street Journal. The author seems to feel that most Lean Six Sigma projects fail, but has some very interesting lessons learned.

I agree with your article when it comes to how weight-loss and Six Sigma fail. They both do fail just like a spring, But I disagree with how often they fail. I have seen and read hundreds of successful projects that show Six Sigma successes[i]. I have not read them but I feel there are probably just as many in weight loss success as well. Yes some are successful in several projects before the “fad” wears off, but what really makes them fail. Both Weight Loss and Six Sigma, failure is due to a lack of commitment to a cultural change not just a few projects. I think you found that out too in your lessons learned[ii].

Lets look at your four lessons learned:

“…the extended involvement of a Six Sigma or other improvement expert is required of teams are to remain motivated.” This is very true. IF the Expert is pulled on any improvement project usually it means failure. Where you have a company that has committed to a Six Sigma cultural change, pulling the expert means closure of the project and an explanation from top management (not a lower level) of the reason it is no longer a viable or priority project. All Six Sigma project should be a high priority project.
“…performance appraisals need to be tied to successful implementation of improvement projects.” This also is true. Every project, in a company committed to a Six Sigma cultural change, has a sponsor who insures that the project is aligned to company goals and objectives that directly impact his or her departments performance. This means failure of the project is failure to meet the goals that they have committed to and YES their performance appraisals are tied to the success of those goals and the perforance of their department.
“… improvement teams should have no more than six to nine members and the timeline for launching a project should be no longer than six to eight weeks.” Since every project should be aligned to key company goals, it would mean that top management would what this project done NOW and not later. Delay would only cost the company money. If that is not the case the project should be dropped. By the way the “DEFINE[iii]” step helps insure this IF it is done right. Also in Define not only is the start decided but also the expected completion date and team membership. People, the most important resource of a company, need to be allocated to maximize their skills. In Six Sigma teams need to be small (5-10) so that the rest of the company can meet its customers demands. Even that many has a big impact on a department. So each team has to be carefully selected to represent all that will be impacted, but large enough to accomplish the task in the time allotted. This is all done in DEFINE with the “expert” and the Sponsor.
“…executives need to directly participate in improvement projects, not just “support” them.” When a company has truly committed to this cultural change and deployed Six Sigma properly you will find every project has a director-level sponsor identified, duties specified, and sufficient time committed and scheduled in advance. Here the sponsor is part of the project team. That is how important the project is to the company.

If Six Sigma is implemented right as a business cultural change in the way they address issue and problems that hold them back from achieving their goals, then everyone get the idea and a voice. It becomes an improvement method everyone is focused on, understands and likes because they have an input into the process.

Peter Bersbach

Bersbach Consulting

peter@bersbach.com

1.520.829.0090

[i] Six Sigma Forum Magazine, ASQ Six Sigma Forum Division, www.sixsigmaforum.com

Quality Progress, American Society for Quality, www.quality progress.com

Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare, Lionheart Publishing Inc., www.psqh.com/digital

Quality Digest, Quality Digest, http://www.qualitydigest.com/content/six-sigma

Quality in Healthcare, ASQ Healthcare Division, www.asq.org/qhc

The Quality Management Forum, ASQ Quality Management Division, www.asq-qm.org

[ii] Where Process-Improvement Projects Go Wrong, Wall Street Journal | Business, January 5, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB20001424052748703298004574457471313938130-lMyQjAyMTAwMDIwNTEyNDUyWj.html

[iii] The First step of DMAIC – Define, Peter Bersbach, Bersbach Consulting, October 27, 2009, http://www.sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com/uncategorized/the-first-step-of-dmaic-%e2%80%93-define/

Tags: Article Review, Leadership, Six Sigma Success
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Leading Six Sigma, Success Stories | No Comments »

The Check Sheet – Simple but powerful

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

I recently heard a gentleman talking about using check sheets, sometimes called checklists, in the surgery room of hospitals. His point, and I agree, is that check sheets can reduce errors and cut down surgery time for all most any surgery given. He stated that many surgeons think that the check sheet could not be used because every patient is different and thus every surgery is different. I agree that every patient is different and that during the “same” surgery on different people one has to constantly adjust to the circumstances. But in reality surgery is the same as most any other procedure. Most companies know that there is variation in everything and thus have to be ready, through robust procedures to adjust the process to have positive end results. Look at NASA, they uses check sheets for every flight and every flight is different and very dangerous, but they find they can not do without them. I think that if surgeons thought about it there are a lot of things that you do the same; at least the major steps. Plus as complicated as surgery is and with all the variations that occur you need a good check sheet to keep the complicated process steps in focus and not forget anything critical that one wanted to get done.

There are several types of check sheets and believe it or not we all use them almost every day; Shopping lists, grocery lists, task lists are all types of check sheets. But the one the gentleman talked about I call “Run Rules.” Why I call them Run Rules is that in critical or complex process you need a “cheat sheet” that is used all the time during the process run. In six sigma these, check sheets, are a control, to insure that changes that are put in place maintain the gains they were designed for.

Why are they needed if you have standard operating procedure? Because those are detailed and lengthy but extremely important for reference and those learning for the first time. For those that have been doing the process for some time, they are not now really look back to those procedures. They have them in their heads. In critical or complex processes , including surgery, there are something’s you want to make sure they are “in their heads.” They are things you really do not what forgotten. These go on the “Run Rules” or check sheet that everyone looks at daily as they are doing the process to insure everything gets done. So if everyone IS going to look at them you have to create them so they are the “go to” item when doing this process. Here are some guidelines for creating effective Run Rules/ Check Sheets.

They are:

Only a small but critical portion of the Standard Procedure applicable to the activity.
One page MAXIMUM.
Used as a reference for everyday use.
Key steps identified as value added for the customer.
On a Standard form so anyone stepping in recognizes them.
Easy to understand
Good for new employees and things you do not do that often.

In summary these Check Sheets/Checklists/Run Rules are your day to day reminders of the details in what you are doing.

Well I hope this has been informative. If you have questions drop me a line.

Peter Bersbach
Bersbach Consulting
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090

Tags: DMAIC Control, Method
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 1 Comment »

LCS a Creative Thinking Tool and More

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Here is a tool that I feel is the greatest tool for coming up with good creative ideas. Ideas on what happened. Ideas on how it happened. Ideas on what caused it. Ideas on how to fix it. Ideas on how to improve it.

Many times we are in meetings where discussions are taking place and you try to add to the discussion only to have someone else ”Knicks” your comments. The person “Knicking” really did not mean to make it sound like your idea was bad but that is the way it came across. Unusually, you will not add more to the conversation. Once put off we tend to keep quite. Plus, I might add, the issue being discussed never really gets resolved by the group. What is happening here is just something that our culture seems to thrive on and that is negative comments. We tend to always come up with why something will not work. We seem to be focused on that. But we never or rarely come up with why something will work, or at least what is good about that idea.

This tool helps in this discussion area to bring out what is good ( the golden nuggets) first and then discuss the issues with the idea next. So here it the tool:

LCS

LCS stands for Likes, Concerns Suggestions. In almost any meeting you can use this tool and you will be amazed at how it improves the discussions in the meeting. Here is how it works:

Everyone in the room must use LCS. At first this means that you will have to explain it to those in the room. Many times I’ll have soft spongy toy’s around the room so if someone does not follow these rules that anyone in the room can and will throw a toy at them to remind them to use LCS.
LIKES – First, if you are going to make a comment about something the first thing you should say about it, is what you like. In doing this you show the person that made the statement and the rest of the members in the room that you understood what was said by identifying things in the statement that you liked. What I call the “Golden Nuggets” of an idea.
CONCERNS – Second, no idea (or comment) is perfect so many times we have some concerns about some points in the original statement. Well those get stated next, but only if you have suggestions to improve or correct your concerns. If you can not come up with a suggested improvement then DO NOT STATE YOUR CONCERN. Why? Because you have no idea that is better. If you did you could add it as a suggestion, which means that you could now state your concern and suggestion for improving it.
SUGGESTIONS –Third, if you state a concern YOU MUST ALWAYS give a suggestion to improve on your concerns. In brainstorming this is called piggybacking off someone else’s idea. They had an idea you liked some of it you had some concerns and suggestions that made the idea better.

Usually the ideas created using LCS are far superior to those that don’t. The reason for that is it is additive intelligence. With a good cross-functional team using LCS a diverse amount of intelligence is brought to the meeting and through LCS it is unleashed to solve an issue or problem the team is working on.

Now remember in Six Sigma even this discussion is only an opinion of the team or group. Now you have to go collect data and prove that the opinion is correct.Well give it a try and let me know what you think. Enjoy

Peter Bersbach

Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Bersbach Consulting

From Process to Profits

1.520.829.0090

Tags: Brianstorming, Creative Thinking, Method
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | No Comments »

The Fifth Step of DMAIC – Control

Monday, November 30th, 2009

DMAIC’s Control

Control is the fifth step of the Six Sigma five step process DMAIC. The objective of Control is to Develop and implement the best controls to maintain the gains and to celebrate, share & reward your successes.

This is the step that is most forgotten because we think we do not need controls. But if we do not perform this step then the gains we achieved in improve will be lost very quickly. Lost because when ever you change a process it takes time to make it part of everyone way of doing things. Think about this with yourself. You have just decided to change the way you do something. How easy is it to forget your new plan without something to help you remember that you changed? An example of this is if you say that from now on I will not snack after dinner. How long will it take before you forget that change and you do snack unless you place some controls (maybe locks on the snack cabinet) to remind you not to. So with any new process you will want to have controls in it to insure that those working the process don’t forget the new method.

The second thing in the objectives is to celebrate your success. I am afraid that in most companies, just like the news, good news or success stories are NOT mention much and it is extremely important that success is shared with all. This is how six sigma becomes a culture rather than a one shot application. Celebration, recognition and reward can be very simple and are always greatly accepted by all. So share your story. If you have a good one send it to me and I will post it on my website.

Here are a series of questions that you will want to answer before calling your project complete and moving on to the next one:

Does your results link back to your objectives, deliverables, and exit criteria?
Will the controls implemented sustain the gains?
How will you recognize and celebrate the success of your team?
Have attitudes changed about using Six Sigma?
Have you addressed and closed all parking lot issues?
What do you need to grow?

It is very important that you get all of these answered. Some that stand out are “Will the controls implemented sustain the gains” and “Have you addressed and closed all parking lot issues”. Make sure that the controls you implement help to sustain the gains. Remember that controls are non value added to the customer but important to delivering what the customer wants, so minimize them but make sure they work. Something that may be unknown to you but very familiar to me is what I call a “Parking Lot”. On every project, I have a parking lot. I use it to put concerns, thoughts, and ideas that come up during the project that, at the time, pulled the team off its focused objective at the moment. Usually these are later addressed in the project but sometimes they have nothing to do with the project and don’t get address during the project. You must hand this off to someone to make sure they are address and not just dropped. They could be another project that will be worked. Forgetting them is like discarding a twenty dollar bill and it has a negative impact on spreading the Six Sigma culture in a company thus impacting further projects.

To answer the questions above it may take several tools and techniques to insure you have control.

Non Statistical Controls
- Standardized Procedures – These are detailed written series of actions which have to be executed in the same manner in order to always obtain the same result. Verbal never is good enough. It needs to be written down so that everyone does it the same way.
- Run Rules – These are like standardized procedures but are only one page long and are used as a reference or guide by those that have been doing a job along time. Detailed procedures are usually not looked at after one has learned and done the job for some time, but there are things in the procedure that need to be available to even the expert worker. These are kept on what I call Run Rules. Must do for all.
- Visual Controls – You may have heard the saying “a Picture is worth a 1000 words” it is true. Visual Controls are basically pictures that help control a process. Think of a handicap sign in a parking lot; it is a visual control to help hold parking spots for those that need to park closer to the store. And every driver knows what they mean. The old take a number is another visual control where it insures the customer that has been waiting the longest gets help first.
- Contingency Plan – These are plans that you need to develop for when something goes wrong with the new process. It lets everyone one know that if they run into a problem (and believe me someone will) this is what you do to continue with the new process.
- Preventative Maintenance – Is the same thing as oil changes with your car or your annual physical; it keeps everything working at an optimum level. It is proactive rather than reactive so you can schedule it during off hours. It is heavily into preventative,
  predictive, and scheduling. As a scheduled activity it needs to be coordinated with all involved working as a team.

Statistical Controls
- Control Charts – Control charts are not always the best method of controlling a given process element. In fact, control charts are seldom the method of choice. When process elements are important we would prefer that they not vary at all! Only when this cannot be accomplished economically should we resort to the use of control charts to monitor the element’s variation.

______________________________

The above are six tools I have not talked about before, other useful Control tools that I have talked about are:

Brainstorming, LCS, Affinity Diagramming, Multi-voting and 5 Whys from my article The First step of DMAIC – Define.

Well there you have it, a little more understanding of the Control step of the Six Sigma 5 step DMAIC process. I hope that this gives you a better understanding of what questions to answer and what tools to uses to get those answers in Control.

Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Bersbach Consulting
From Process to Profits
1.520.829.0090

Tags: DMAIC, DMAIC Control, Method
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 2 Comments »

The Fourth Step of DMAIC – Improve

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

DMAIC’s Improve

Improve is the fourth step of the Six Sigma five step process DMAIC. The objective of Improve is to develop and implement the best plan for improvement of the opportunities (Root Causes) identified in the analyze step. It is not to develop only one plan because to get the “best” you need to have several approaches to work through with your sponsor to find the best mix of solutions that is acceptable to all. I often tell my black belts to develop several options and pick one to really sell to management and the sponsor. If you do not do this then management (your project sponsor) only have the ability to accept what you have or reject the team efforts and shut down the project. You have to understand that the team is focused on improving the process. Management is focus on the whole business and the plan you really want may have a bigger negative impact some where else. That can happen and you need other options that will. Here are a series of questions that you will want to answer before moving on to control:

n What options do you have?

n What options will we go ahead and do?

n What is the plan to implement the new process (options)?

n What additional resources are needed?

n How does your new process work?

n Are you sub-optimizing?

n What are your measures that show improvement?

n What went different than planned?

n Does this solution support company’s goals?

It is very important that you get all of these answered. Some that stand out are “Are you sub-optimizing” and “Does this solution support company Goals?” Sub-optimization is when you make improvements in your process only to have a negative impact further down stream in the company or organization. This is best address as I mentioned earlier buy making sure you understand all the options to improve. Once you have a plan make sure again that you are making an impact on your company goals. Some times we get to this stage and do not make sure that the options we want to implement really do impact the company goals.

To answer the question above it may take several tools and techniques to collect the “facts and data.” So here in Improve, there are several good tool and techniques that can help get you that data.

Constraint Management – A Constraint (bottleneck) is any resource with fewer throughputs than the demand placed on it. Usually constraints regulate the output of the process so you need to use techniques that optimize the constraint and keep it running/ working all the time.
Pull Systems – These are method of controlling the flow and quantity of resources by only replacing what has been consumed. It is a system of signals to refill/ replenish right when you take the last item to work.
Setup Reduction – Setup is the time required for the process or activity to changeover from producing the last good piece of the prior item (part) to the first good piece of the next item. Setup Reduction is a set of techniques used to reduce that time.
Lot Size Reduction – Lot Size is defined as “The amount of a particular item that is ordered from the plant or a supplier or issued as a standard quantity to the production process – (APICS). Lot sizes larger than 1 adds wait time to every piece in the lot. Waiting is considered a waste[1]. So in Lot Size Reduction we try to decrease the lot size to one.
5 S’s – The 5 S’s are a waste elimination process that is applied to any process. There are a lot of methods to doing this and worksheets to help but in short the 5S’s stand for:
- Sort through and Sort out
- Set everything in order
- Shine everything
- Standardize processes
- Sustain the gains
Design of Experiments – This is simply when you design an experiment to determine when you change something how a process reacts to that change. Many times we do this by hold all input variables constant except one and observe the response as you vary the single input. This is called OFAT (one factor at time) which is not the best way to do a designed experiment. Problems with this approach are:

It usually isn’t possible to hold all other variables constant.
There is no way to account for the effect of joint variation of independent variables, such as interaction.
There is no way to account for experimental error, including measurement variation.

Most that do Design of Experiments (DOE) vary two or more variables simultaneously and make multiple measurements under the same experimental conditions. This eliminates all three of the above problems. This is the best way to run an experiment to get the most for your efforts.

Simple Business Analysis – This analysis takes all the approaches to improvement and evaluates them on at least in these three areas; effectiveness, costs to do and time it will take to implement. Below is a simple chart I use to do this analysis.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The above are seven tools I have not talked about before, other useful Improve tools that I have talked about are:

Brainstorming, LCS, Affinity Diagramming, Multi-voting and 5 Whys from my article The First step of DMAIC – Define.

Plus DE & UDE, Gauge R&R, Basic Summary Stats and Pareto Charts from my article The Second step of DMAIC – Measure.

Cause & Effect Diagrams, The Third step of DMAIC – Analyze.

Well there you have it, a little more understanding of the Improve step of the Six Sigma 5 step DMAIC process. I hope that this gives you a better understanding of what questions to answer and what tools to uses to get those answers in Improve.

Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Bersbach Consulting
From Process to Profits

1.520.829.0090

[1] The Seven Types of Waste a Summary

Tags: DMAIC, DMAIC Improve, Method
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 2 Comments »

The Third Step of DMAIC – Analyze

Monday, November 16th, 2009

DMAIC’s Analyze

Analyze is the third step of the Six Sigma five step process DMAIC. The objective of Analyze is to analyze the current state data and determine the root causes, the opportunities, to improve. Here we take a more in-depth look at the data collected in measure and try to determine the root causes of the issues that the data shows us. Many times, we have to go back out and take more data from the process in what I call a “Deep Dive” to determine the real root cause of what we see in measure. Remember that as you get opinions of what is causing thing to happen go collect the data to back up (validate) that opinion. Here are a series of questions that you will want to answer before moving on to improve:

What are the perceived causes of the process variability and which can we control?
What is of value to the customer?
What are the detail steps of the process?
Have you validated the “As-Is” causes?

It is very important that you get all of these answered. Some that stand out are what is of value to the customer and have you validated the “As-Is” causes. Make sure that the root causes that you find really do impact something that the customer really cares about; something that is of value to them. If you are not working causes that impact customer value then they will never return value back to the company and you will be spending time fixing something that the customer really does not care about. If you find this is true the solution maybe to totally eliminate this step since the customer finds it not of value. If you think that you can not eliminate it, then ask yourself what customer does find it important to do. We always are creating value for someone even if it is you. If you are not then you are just wasting your time.

The second thing I mentioned was to validate the “As-Is” causes. You may have had a group meeting and come up with some causes of effects you saw in measure that your customer really cares about, but until you go collect data on those causes and validate the opinions that they cause what you saw in measure you should not move forward to improve. Remember we are all about facts and data that support what we are doing.

To answer the question above it may take several tools and techniques to collect the “facts and data.” So here in Analyze, there are several good tool and techniques that can help get you that data.

Value Flow Analysis – This analysis take the process observation log[1] that one usually creates in measure and reviews each step listed and the time it takes to do that step, to determine if it is of value or not. Usually you will sum up all the times of the value added and non value added steps. In this way, you can see how much time you spend creating value for your customers and where there are steps that need to be reduced or eliminated because they do not create any value for your customer.

Cause & Effect Diagrams – This diagram organizes group knowledge about causes of a problem and displays the information graphically. It was invented by Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa and is sometimes called a called Ishikawa Diagrams. Some see this diagram and think it resembles a fish skeleton and that is why it is sometimes called a Fishbone Diagram. In the Cause and Effect Diagram, you start by drawing a box on the right or left hand side and in the box you put the effect that you saw in measure. Next, you brainstorm[2] causes of that effect and add them to the “branches.” Sometimes you also combine it with the five whys[3] tool to get the detail branches and the true “root” cause or causes of the effect.

Scatter Plots – This plot is used to visualize the relationship between two variables. In the plot below, we are looking to see if there is a relationship between weight and days. If there was no relationship, the points on the chart would be scatter randomly all over the chart. In this chart, there is a relationship that shows as the number of day’s increase the weight also increases.

Confidence Intervals – These are statistically created to give you an area that you will feel confident that the real value will be found in. Say you make 12 inch rules and you like to be very confident (99% sure) that all your rules are 12 inches. Well you first have to understand that everything varies and so do your rulers but how accurate are they? You would take a sample of them and calculate the confidence interval for their length. You might find that you can be 99% sure that any rule you make is within 11 7/8 inch to 12 1/8 inch or 12 inches plus or minus 1/8 of an inch.
T Tests – This is also called the “Student’s t test”. This is statistically created when we want to compare two group averages and determine if they are the same or different. Many times, we want to know if a process has changed or shifted from what it was doing before. This test would tell you if it did.
F Test – This is statistically created when we want to compare two groups variations or variability. Let me try to explain this thing called variation. Everywhere you look, you see variation. In the people, the traffic at an intersection, or even pencils in a box. Let’s say you are buying pencils and there are two boxes of them on the shelf made from different companies. Both make pencils 10 inches long but you want to know if one company’s are more consistently 10” long. You would use this test to see if the variation in pencil length in one box versus the other is different or the same.
Chi Square Test – Not every thing is “measurable” sometime all we have is count data. The Chi square Test is statistically recreated to see if two group proportions (percentage of a count) are the same or different. Say, you run a grocery store and the current shipment of eggs seem to have a lot that are cracked, and you want to know if the next shipment that just arrived is any better. Here you could take a sample of what is on the shelf and a sample from the new shipment and find out if the two shipments have the same number of cracked eggs or not.

n The above are tools that I have not talked about before, other useful Analyze tools that I have talked about that are; Brainstorming, LCS, Affinity Diagramming and 5 Whys from my article The First step of DMAIC – Define. Plus DE & UDE, Gauge R&R, Basic Summary Stats and Pareto Charts from my article The Second step of DMAIC – Measure

Well there you have it, a little more understanding of the Analyze step of the Six Sigma 5 step DMAIC process. I hope that this gives you a better understanding of what to questions to answer and what tools to uses to get those answers in Analyze.

Peter Bersbach

Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Bersbach Consulting

From Process to Profits

1.520.829.0090

[1] Process observation Log was talked about in the article “The Second step of DMAIC – Measure”

[2] Brainstorming was talked about in the article “The First step of DMAIC – Define”

[3] The Five Whys was talked about in the article “The Second step of DMAIC – Measure”

Tags: Analyze, DMAIC, Method
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 1 Comment »

The Second step of DMAIC – Measure

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Measure is the second step of the Six Sigma five step process DMAIC. The objectives of Measure are two fold. First is, using GEMBA, factually understand the existing process. For those that have not heard of GEMBA it means “go see” and in Six Sigma we use the term to imply that you need to get up and go out to the process that you are going to improve and actually “see” what is really happening. You can NOT do this is a conference room or at your desk alone. The process may in fact be all done at your desk but you need to have other with you looking at what is done to collect the actual way things are done. Second, you then compile that data into a characterization of the current state. Many times you will hear this called the process Baseline.

In measure it is important that you capture exactly what is really happening and do not take for granted that everything is being done exactly to procedure. It usually is not. If more than one person is doing this process check them all as you will find they all are doing it slightly different. Different is not necessarily bad but that difference IS the variation in your process. So to help me (and you) capture the current state I have a series of questions that if you address them will help insure you complete this step. Here they are:

1. How does it work now?
2. What are the Key metrics for this process? Are they valid?
3. What is the Current Sigma level of the process?
4. What are the Detail steps of the process?
5. What is good about the process you want to keep?
6. What are the problems and their causes?

It is very important that you get all of these answered. Some that stand out are identifying key metrics and identifying what is good about the process. You need to always look and find out how the process is currently being measured. How does any one know that things are going good or bad with this process? They have to have some “measure” they take to get that idea. Yes sometimes it is a gut feel but you will have to back it up with data so if they say it takes to long; time it and see how long it takes. The second key question that many forget is what works well in the process. This is key because you want to make sure that when you improve the bad you have not made things worse in the good areas. Those you do not want to touch.

To answer the question above it may take several tools and techniques to collect the “facts and data” to answer these questions. We like opinions, they help guide us, but we need data that validates the opinions. So in answering these questions many times you will get opinions but you still need to gather the data to show the opinion is true (or false). So here in Measure, there are several good tool and techniques that can help get you that data.

Descriptive Statistics –These are generally calculated from a sample of information (data) off your process. They tend to be in three areas of interest about your data group (distribution). They are location, it’s spread and it’s shape.

Location _______Spread ________Shape

Location or Central Tendencies – These are the mean (average), Median (or middle value) and the Mode (the most frequent value).

Spread or Dispersion – The most popular are Range (The difference or spread between the highest value and the lowest value) or the Standard Deviation a calculated measure of variation around the Mean or Average.

Shape – Two things determine shape. One is it Skewed to one side or the other (you can calculate this) and two is it flat or peaked (again you can calculate this [kurtosis])

Dot Plots – Are just that a plot of every data point on a chart.

Histograms – These are a pictorial of the data. They are created by grouping the data into what is called bins or cells.

Run Charts – Similar to the dot chart, the run chart plot the data over time, in time sequence.

Control Charts – Like the Run Charts, Control Charts plot data over time. Unlike Run Charts they have control limits plotted on the chart as well. Although you can plot individual data points like the one below, a control chart many time plots Summary data over time.

Gauge R&R (Repeatability & Reproducibility) – These studies are important to understanding how much of the variation that you see is due to the process and how much is do to the measurement system (the way the measurements are taken). Many times this is overlooked but you have to understand that everything varies including the way you measure (collect) your data.
Pareto Charts – This is a special type of Histogram that arranges the Bins or Cells (categories) into an order of highest frequency to the lowest. This is done so one can see what the major categories are.

Process Observation Log – This is just a log sheet that you list the process steps in order, how long they take and what the yield is at each step. Sometimes people include a column that identifies the step as value added or Non value added.
Process Flow Diagramming – This is a diagram draw to show the sequence of steps from the process observation log. People draw these because it is easier to understand and see what is happening in the diagram then the log list.

DE & UDE – DE (Desired Effect and Undesired Effect) is just a list of those things that are desirable (things you want to keep) and undesirable (things you do not want). This seems simple, and it is, but we forget to write these things down so that when we get into the heat of things we can not remember them unless they are written down.

Plus here are two more that I talked about in Define: Brainstorming and the 5 Whys.

Well there you have it. A little more understanding of the Measure step of the Six Sigma 5 step DMAIC process.

Peter Bersbach

Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Bersbach Consulting

From Process to Profits

1.520.829.0090

Tags: DMAIC, DMAIC Measure
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 1 Comment »

The First Step of DMAIC – Define

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

DMAIC – Define

Define is the first step of the Six Sigma five step process DMAIC. The objectives of Define are two fold. First is to define the issue (problem) and the real need to improve it (The Burning Platform). Second is to then get alignment and commitment to solve this issue from the sponsor and project team (including their supervision). Define is one of the critical steps of this five step process. Many times, we do not gather enough of the right information to properly define the issue we are trying to solve. So to help me (and you) I have a series of questions that if you address them will help insure you complete this critical step. Here they are:

1. What is the Burning Platform? Why do you need to do this NOW?
2. What company goal does this support and what is its priority?
3. What is the Top level process flow?
4. Who are its – Suppliers and their inputs & Customers and what outputs do they receive?
5. What is your vision of the future?
6. What are you trying to accomplish and the process needing improvement?
7. What benefits will the organization realize?
8. Whom & what do you need to accomplish this project?
9. What is the expected outcome of the project (quantified goals / objectives)?

10. How do you know you are done (exit criteria)?

11. Who are the committed/aligned team members?

It is very important that you get all of these answered. Some that stand out are alignment to company goals and having a good vision of the future. Goal alignment is critical if you want your team to stay together and finish the project. If your project is not aligned you can bet team member supervisors will have other priorities that, in their mine, are higher than the ones for your project and will pull team members to work their priorities. Every project needs a good vision so the whole team will know where they are headed with the project. That increases the team alignment.

To answer the question above it may take several tools and techniques to collect the “facts and data” to answer these questions. Remember that in Six Sigma we like opinions, they help guide us, but we need data that validates the opinions. So in answering these questions many times you will get opinions but you still need to gather the data to show the opinion is true (or false). So here in define, there are several good tool and techniques that can help get you that data.

SIPOC – Stands for Supplier, Input, Process, Output, and Customer. It is a very top level process flow of the process you are trying to improve, but it includes more than just the process flow. It has inputs to the process and who supplies those inputs. Plus it also has the output of the process with who (customer) will receive the output.

GEMBA – Is just a Japanese term for “Go See” and here we use it to remind us to get out to the area where the process is working and really watch and see how it works. Nothing can be solved in a conference room or sitting at a desk.

Creative Thinking/ Brainstorming – This is just a method for coming up with as many ideas as one can conceive of. They can be wild and crazy ideas because in them, just like the ore in mines, we will find the golden nuggets.

LCS – Stands for Likes Concerns and Suggestions. This is one of the best and simple tools I have ever used. In any meeting (or even conversation), if all parties follow LCS you will eliminate divergence and create alignment in the discussion. Here how it works. There are three basic rules that anyone in the group must follow to comment on another person’s statement.
First, you must states something you like about what the person said. This tells them you understood what they said and gets alignment and agreement on what you liked.
Second (NOTE!!! you can only do this second step if you also have the third in mind otherwise you must stop on the fist step only!!!) Tell them you concerns about what they said.
Third, you must always follow your concerns with your own suggestions for correcting your concerns.

This really gets folks moving forward on issues they disagree on as we build ways around the disagreement through suggestions.

Affinity Diagramming – usually follows brainstorming where you have all those wild and crazy ideas. Now we take them all and group them into area of similarities. This helps see those nuggets I was talking about before. A lot of times, I use post it notes in brainstorming so I can easily move them around and place in groups that are similar. It helps and gets everyone on there feet moving around.

Multi-Voting – is a method of deciding or prioritizing ideas or tasks. The basic rule here is to give everyone an amount of votes (usually it is 20% of the number of ideas or tasks that you are trying to work) and let them vote on the ones they like best. Right away, you will see certain ones are more important than others to the group.

5 Whys – This gets us back to our childhood a bit but to get at the true root of something many times we have to ask why several times. It is simple but true. If we don’t ask “why” enough times we may not get to the bottom of the issue. But you will know when it is too many when you get there. Usually it is about 5 times.

Well there you have it. A little more understanding of the define step of the Six Sigma 5 step DMAIC process.

Peter Bersbach

Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Bersbach Consulting

From Process to Profits

1.520.829.0090

Tags: DMAIC, Method, Need
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 4 Comments »

The Roadmap to a Successful Six Sigma Project

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

There are a lot of reasons that Six Sigma projects fail but they do not have to IF you can stick to the roadmap. I have done lots of projects most very successful but some have failed. In every case we stepped off of the tried and true path to success, the DMAIC roadmap. As simple and easy as these five steps seem to be, you will many times find them difficult to complete. But if that is happening, my advice to you is to “stay on the path”. Don’t skip a single step. If you stay on the path, you will find success.

DMAIC The five step process

So what are the five steps of this DMAIC roadmap? They are Define the issue, Measure the current state, Analyze and identify opportunities, Improve by implementing the best opportunities, and Control the new process to maintain the gains. You start every project at Define working your way through each step until you have put in place Controls to maintain your gains. What many of us do without thinking is we see a problem (Define)and go solve (improve) it. Most of the times you will find that within a year or maybe even a month or week the problem is back. What went wrong? We missed the other steps of the DMAIC roadmap. So let me spend some time talking about each step.

D – Define

The objective of Define is to define the issue (problem) and the real NEED to improve it. I call this need “the burning platform”. It can not be a nice thing to do, it has to be something that will have an impact on the bottom line of the company.

The second part of the define objective is to get alignment and commitment to solve this issue from the project sponsor and the project team. It also includes the team member’s supervision. We need them committed so they will not pull the team member for priorities lower than this project.

M – Measure

The objective of Measure is to go as a team, to where this process is physically and factually understand the existing process. This means collect facts and data not opinions. Everyone has an opinion but few have the facts to back up the opinion. I am not discounting opinions because most folks down in the trenches (and that is where you have to go) are the experts and have excellent idea of what is happening. The thing they lack is the data to prove it. So we listen to them carefully and then collect the data to prove what is happening. Note I said happening, that is not always what the expert says. But with the facts and data we can now go back to the expert and see if they now agree with what we found. Usually they do and are surprised by the findings.

The second part of the Measure objective is to then compile that data you have collected into a characterization of the current state of the process (the baseline for your project). This will show how bad things are or are not. Most of the time things will be worse than they first thought. In some cases, you may find that things are not bad at all. Then you need to explain your results to the sponsor and if the sponsor agrees close the project. You see sometimes even sponsors opinion of what is wrong is not backed by facts and data. So when you collect them it becomes obvious that this was not an issue.

A – Analyze

The objective of Analyze is to take the current state data and analyze it to determine the root causes of the issue. These root causes become opportunities to improve. Measure data shows you the “surface effects” or “pain” the company feels but not usually the deeper root of the issue. Because of that, you will usually find that you need to collect more data related to the measure data that validates the teams opinion of what is causing the current state issue to exist. So here in Analyze we have to take a “Deep Dive” into areas that measure pointed out as really needing improvement.

I – Improve

The objective of Improve is to develop and implement the best plan for improvement of the opportunities (root causes) identified in the Analyze step. There are two key phrases in this objective. “Develop the best plan” and “implement the best plan”. Develop takes some brainstorming and then some experimenting to validate that what you came up with would work. Second in develop is a plan. In the plan you will need several options so that when the time comes for getting an OK to implement it is not one or done (no action taken). Give the sponsor options to choose from but pick your best set and pitch it to them with a why it is best (remember facts and data).

The second key phrase is “implement the best plan. Whatever is picked, you need to create a detailed implementation plan. Create a time line and stick to it.

C – Control

Note: this is the most forgotten step. The objective of Control is to develop and implement the best controls to maintain the gains that the new process is producing. With anything new, things never work perfect. When things go wrong, as they will, you need a plan/ controls that will guide everyone as to what to do. If you do not do this when things go wrong, those involved will revert back to what they know and have done for years. A control plan can be as simple as a log of what happened, or as complex as a statistical control chart. What ever it is it needs to help the people working the new process continue to follow it.

There is a second part to control that has nothing to do with control but has everything to do with recognition. People on and off the team have worked very hard during the project to solve the issue and to keep things going while the team has worked to solve the issue. There needs to be a celebration and rewards for everyone involved to celebrate the success and their contribution to the solution. In today’s business world, we are faster to tell folks what is wrong than what is right so make sure you celebrate your success.

This is just a quick look at the DMAIC process and has not even address questions that should be answered in each step. My plan is to write five more articles each one addressing one of the steps in the DMAIC process in more detail. If you don’t see them at this blog, you will find them at the Six Sigma Knowledge Center.

Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Bersbach Consulting LLC
(520) 829-0090

Tags: Method, Need
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 1 Comment »

The Seven Types of Waste a Summary

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Bersbach Consulting LLC provides Six Sigma training coaching and support across Arizona, including the Tucson, Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Glendale areas. At this time we would like to thank our friends and clients for their support. If you have landed here looking for our Six Sigma training, coaching or support services in Tucson, then please follow this Six Sigma Training link.

You may have seen a couple of posts I have done on the seven types of waste. I have completed seven articles on all seven types of waste you might find in your organization. Below is a listing and a short description for each of the seven types of waste plus a link to the full article. I believe if you read these articles you will have a new way of looking at your business.

The Seven Types of Waste:

Correction – Corrections are and time you redo, rewrite, rework, repair, or scrap something. This can be as simple as rewriting a grocery list. Say you have a grocery list but you want to rearrange the items on it in the order you will encounter them in the store. Even though it will speed things for you shopping it had to be redone instead of thinking of making the list ordered in the first place. Redoing the list did not add any value to you; it took longer to write it a second time instead of doing it right the first time.

Overproduction – Overproduction is when you make too much of something or you perform too much of a service for some one. Have you ever held a meeting and made copies for that meeting? Most people make a few extra, do you? That is overproduction they will end up in the trash. Or have you every as a question about something in a store and the salesman goes on an on answering your question when all you wanted was the simple answer? That salesman was overproducing

Movement of material or information – This type of waste is when you take any material for information and have to move it from one place to another. You may ship it or carry it your self but that movement does not create any value for the customer in fact it is lost time because it delays your product or service from getting to your customer

Motion of employees – This type of waste is when you or an operator has get up and walk or travel to get something to do their job. Just like movement of materials and information, motion of the operator does not create value. In fact the “thing” in the process is not changing at all

Waiting – This type of waste is when you, other employees, customer, material, or equipment sits idle waiting. Think about all the waiting rooms there are. As a customer do you want to wait? No but we sometime have come to expect the wait. I have been to doctor’s office where the waiting room is empty or full did not matter but in some I was seen on time and other I have waited over an hour.

Inventory or other resources - This type of waste is not just supplies and materials on shelves but also any recourse your company has that is not being utilized. We normal see inventory as parts and supplies sitting on a shelf like boxes of cereal in the grocery store. But here inventory also include equipment that is standing idle or in storage and employees that have skill that are not being used to their fullest.

Processes - This type of waste is when you are doing more than required by the customer. This is a hard one to understand because sometimes doing more for free has a WOW factor for your customers. That is why it is important to know what is of value and what is not. You see sometime you do sometime more that you think the customer wants and they do not care. That is when it becomes a waste.

If your business is located anywhere in the World including the US, Tucson, Oro Valley , Oracle, Phoenix, Glendale, and Scottsdale, Marana, Green Valley Arizona or beyond and you would like to learn more about our Six Sigma training, coaching and support services please call Bersbach Consulting LLC at 1-520-829-0090 Now!

Tags: Method, Seven Types of Waste
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 3 Comments »